20th Century Fox Schedule Three X-Men Movies For 2018

The X-Men cinematic timeline is already an indiscernible mess, and it’s about to get even more confused in 2018.

Next year is already looking like a bumper year for superhero movies with no fewer than three coming from Marvel Studios as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But that hasn’t stopped Fox from announcing three more films based on Marvel characters.

Announced over the weekend were ‘Deadpool 2’, ‘New Mutants’ and ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’.

Trying to piece together the cinematic timeline of the X-Men movies is no easy task and questions have been raised as to how three new films in 2018 will fit in with the existing films.

New Mutants

There are two theories as to where ‘New Mutants’ will sit in the X-Men movie timeline. The safe money is that events will come after those concluded in the 2016 addition to the series, ‘X-Men: Apocalypse‘. Though how far beyond ‘Apocalypse’ is anyone’s guess. An outside bet could be that we’ll pick up the story of X23 and friends post ‘Logan‘.

‘New Mutants’ is first on the slate with a release date of April 13th.

Deadpool 2

‘Deadpool 2‘ is likely to offer much of the same in this highly anticipated sequel. The first movie found its audience with an ‘R’ rating in cinemas and enjoyed phenomenal success through its fourth wall breaking comedy and scenes of graphic violence.

Ryan Reynolds reprised his role as Deadpool for a third time with Josh Brolin joining the cast as Cable. The first film ran parallel to other X-Men films and I wouldn’t expect too much crossover from the second as the main franchise grows in new directions.

‘Deadpool 2’ will hit cinemas from June 1st.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

The last movie scheduled for 2018 is the one that muddies the timeline the most. ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ is a well-known story arc from the comics that centres around Jean Grey’s corruption as her powers become uncontrollable. The story has already been covered in ‘The Last Stand’ but events changed in ‘Days of Future Past’ could explain why the arc could be revisited with Sophie Turner now playing Jean Grey.

About the author | Will Harrison

Founder of The Unheard Nerd. A husband and father of two girls, Will is a fan of Nerdcore Hip-Hop, a comics fiend, a podcast host and champion of independent nerd culture. | Follow will on twitter: @TheUnheardNerd